Competition Law No. 23/2018 / QH14 adopted by the XIV National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the 5th session on June 12, 2018, takes effect from July 1, 2019. The Law consists of 10 chapters, 118 Articles.
This Law provides for acts of restraint of competition, economic concentration affecting or potentially limiting competition to the Vietnamese market; unfair competition acts; competition proceedings; handling violations of competition law; State management on competition.
One of the highlights of the Competition Act 2018 is the provision of a leniency policy. Accordingly, this is a completely new content recorded in the Law, it is seen as an effective legal tool to circumvent prohibited market restriction agreements.
Leniency is the granting of a waiver or reduction of penalties for businesses that violate competition laws but then cooperate with competition law enforcement agencies. Accordingly, the core content of this policy is to exempt or significantly reduce organizations and individuals participating in the leniency program from the risk of administrative sanctions or subject to severe penalties. but they should have suffered due to a violation of competition law.
Enterprises that voluntarily declare to help the National Competition Committee detect, investigate and deal with prohibited acts of restraint of competition stipulated in Article 12 of this Law are exempted or reduced according to the drilling policy. pink
The leniency policy applies to no more than three first enterprises applying for leniency to the National Competition Committee to meet the conditions specified in Clause 3 of this Article.
The exemption and reduction of fine levels shall be as follows:
a) The first enterprise having an application for leniency and meeting the conditions specified in Clause 3 of this Article shall be exempt from 100% of the fine level;
b) Second and third enterprises having applications for leniency and meeting the conditions specified in Clause 3 of this Article shall be reduced by 60% and 40%, respectively.
The value of the leniency policy allows competition authorities to access confidential evidence and information regarding illegal competition agreements, which in fact do not have this policy. It will be extremely difficult and time consuming to collect them in the early stages of the investigation. Therefore, leniency can be used as an additional method in collecting evidence, greatly reducing investigation costs as well as trial costs for both competition authorities and courts.